Advanced Analytics and Data Management in the Procurement Function: An Aviation Industry Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a well-written submission, but it could be improved. In my understanding, the article examines the utility of data and analytics in the procurement process. Procurement is an incredibly complex business process, even when just considering the strategic perspective without delving into individual activities. Additionally, procurement is part of a larger discussion on supply chain management. However, instead of starting with this as the main subject of discussion, the article seems to initially focus on providing an overview of digitalization and then narrows down to analytics and its different nuances. I would suggest investing more time in demonstrating due diligence on the procurement discussion which adds even more complexity in the aviation industry where there is little room for error. Some resources that may assist in improving this part of the discussion include but are not limited to:

·         Adjei-Bamfo, Peter, Theophilus Maloreh-Nyamekye, and Albert Ahenkan. "The role of e-government in sustainable public procurement in developing countries: A systematic literature review." Resources, Conservation and Recycling 142 (2019): 189-203.

·         Chan, Albert PC, and Emmanuel Kingsford Owusu. "Evolution of electronic procurement: contemporary review of adoption and implementation strategies." Buildings 12, no. 2 (2022): 198.

·         Herold, Silke, Jonas Heller, Frank Rozemeijer, and Dominik Mahr. "Dynamic capabilities for digital procurement transformation: a systematic literature review." International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 53, no. 4 (2023): 424-447.

·         Jahani, Niloofar, Arash Sepehri, Hadi Rezaei Vandchali, and Erfan Babaee Tirkolaee. "Application of industry 4.0 in the procurement processes of supply chains: a systematic literature review." Sustainability 13, no. 14 (2021): 7520.

·         Kumar, Sachin, and P. S. Aithal. "Tech-Business Analytics–A Review Based New Model to Improve the Performances of Various Industry Sectors." International Journal of Applied Engineering and Management Letters (IJAEML) 7, no. 1 (2023): 67-91.

·         Maritaa, Leny, Nurita Andrianic, Muhammad Alkirom Wildanc, Yahya Surya Winatac, Muhammad Syarifc, Muhtadin Muhtadind, and Muhammad Azmi Alamsyahe. "Contribution of Public e-Procurement to Sustainable Development Goals in Indonesia: Systematic Literature Review." Journal homepage: https://journal. trunojoyo. ac. id/ijseit 6, no. 01 (2021).

·         Paliwal, Vineet, Shalini Chandra, and Suneel Sharma. "Blockchain technology for sustainable supply chain management: A systematic literature review and a classification framework." Sustainability 12, no. 18 (2020): 7638.

A comprehensive review of maturity models should include a more detailed overview, encompassing their historical development in the 1970s and 1980s within total quality management and software development. While earlier discussions mainly focused on two-dimensional aspects of the models, contemporary models often present a three-dimensional approach to reflect increased complexity. Some resources that may assist in improving this part of the discussion include but are not limited to:

·         Chovanová, Henrieta Hrablik, Dagmar Babčanová, Natália Horňáková, Jana Samáková, and Helena Makyšová. "Methodology to improve the maturity of project management at industrial enterprises." In Diverse Applications and Transferability of Maturity Models, pp. 316-345. IGI Global, 2019.

·         Correia, Elisabete, Helena Carvalho, Susana G. Azevedo, and Kannan Govindan. "Maturity models in supply chain sustainability: A systematic literature review." Sustainability 9, no. 1 (2017): 64.

·         Egaña Tomic, Tomas C. "A maturity model for process data analytics in biopharmaceutical manufacturing." PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2021.

·         Hellweg, Frauke, Sandra Lechtenberg, Bernd Hellingrath, and Antonio Márcio Tavares Thomé. "Literature review on maturity models for digital supply chains." Brazilian Journal of Operations & Production Management 18, no. 3 (2021): 1-12.

·         O’Brien, Sharon, and Patrick Cadwell. "Communicating COVID-19 in multiple languages: a maturity model assessment of Ireland’s crisis communication practice." Revista de Llengua i Dret, Journal of Language and Law 77 (2022): 1-17.

·         Pavan, Raquel Ottoboni, Marco Antonio Ferreira, Nelson Oliveira Stefanelli, and Gislaine Camila Lapasini Leal. "Maturity models in SSCM: A systematic review aimed at consolidating models and outlining possibilities for future research." Benchmarking: An International Journal 30, no. 10 (2023): 4076-4099.

·         Saavedra, Viviana, Abraham Dávila, Karin Melendez, and Marcelo Pessoa. "Organizational maturity models architectures: a systematic literature review." Trends and Applications in Software Engineering: Proceedings of CIMPS 2016 5 (2017): 33-46.

·         Ünlü, Hüseyin, Onur Demirörs, and Vahid Garousi. "Readiness and maturity models for Industry 4.0: A systematic literature review." Journal of Software: Evolution and Process (2023): e2641.

Finally, the authors should review all citations to ensure there are no spelling errors or missing bibliographic information. Additionally, there should be consistency e.g. websites should be documented in the same way. For instance, one reference has (https://bluexp.netapp.com/blog/cvo-blg-8-digital-transformation-technologies-and-their-business-impact) while the very next reference has https://resources.moredirect.com/white-papers/idc-report-the-digitization-of-the-world-from-edge-to-core demonstrating inconsistency in use of parentheses.

Author Response

Please see uploaded file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I had the opportunity to read the "Advanced Analytics and Data Management in the Procurement Function: An Aviation Industry Case Study" manuscript submitted for publication to Electronics journal ("Advanced Research in Technology and Information Systems" special issue). The manuscript is valuable being well supported with the past investigation ("... It builds upon early results from the project ...") and can be published.

Some issues must be however addressed:

The abstract should provide a little more details of the title aforementioned case study.

I would like to see a little more emphasis and details on "“strategic procurement analytics" in connection/against strategic management, especially related with their tools of investigation.

Since the results are reported from surveys analysis, I would like to see some preparatory words on analysis based on surveys.

Some more details on "Design-Actuality gap model" usage in the considered case-study are required.

The authors should evaluate again if both figures 4 and 5 are necessary, or a modified version integrating both may better serve the purpose.

I found nowhere in the results the total number of respondents.

Regarding data provided in figure 8: it is a convenience (in medicine mostly, where is dealing with patients, but applies to social sciences too) to provide data with confidence intervals, aka, if we observed certain number of responses (such as 3 out of 16(or 15?) for the first (to make a decision based on SPA), how many answers we will observe if we replicate the experiment with other respondents? - only a probabilistic reply can come here and it is usually extracted at 95% confidence. 

Table A2 in https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14061104 will simply provide a such answer. If number of respondents = 15 then the answer is on the line "15" (from the right to the left) in the aforementioned table. 3/15 is with 95% confidence interval (in 95% of the replicated cases, the number of responses will be inside of the interval) from 1 (for x = 3 as column, N_{x=3} = 1) to 15-N_{15-3} =  9 (formula in table caption).

3/15 between 1/15 and (15-9)/15

2/15 between 0/15 and (15-11)/15

6/15 between 3/15 and (15-6)/15

15/15 between 15/15 and 15/15

of, with m = 16:

3/16 between 1/16 and (16-10)/16

2/16 between 0/16 and (16-12)/16

6/16 between 3/16 and (16-6)/16

15/16 between 14/16 and (16-0)/16

Please provide the proper confidence intervals (calculated at 5% risk being in error).

Please use the journal style for references.

The rest of the paper is fine.

Author Response

Please see uploaded file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No further comments